


Night Terrors

by Foxurns



Series: Bittersweet Symphony [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: ("oops... i did it again" plays faintly in the distance), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff, Gender-neutral Reader, I did my best, Other, Reader Is Not Chara (Undertale), Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), i mean it's nightmare there's gotta be a bit of ":(" in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 18:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foxurns/pseuds/Foxurns
Summary: Well... You never were one to turn down a bit of (un)pleasant company, right?How ironic, though, that said company involved a distinct LACK of nightmares.





	Night Terrors

You’re not sure how things got to this point.

In fact, you’re not sure how this even started to begin with.

“**scoot over.**”

“Make me.”

The memory eludes you, really, but you can’t help but smile at the annoyed grunt. Even as a smooth, tar-like tendril pushes you across the bed, you can’t find it in yourself to complain.

“**i don’t know why you keep being stubborn. we do this every night. literally.**” 

The growling complaint only succeeds in turning your smile into an impish grin.

“Why not? Plus, the whole grumpy thing is cute.”

The statement earns you the precise reaction you were hoping for: a strangled screeching noise, a harshly narrowed eyelight, and a dripping hand slapped over your mouth. 

You politely ignore the electric blue glow engulfing your unusual visitor’s skull. 

“**stars, shut _up_,**” his voice comes out in an uncharacteristically quivering hiss, “**your yapping is absolutely infernal.**”

You merely shrug in response to his glare, satisfaction growing to _immense_ levels when he snarls but pulls his hand away anyway. Only then does Nightmare plop himself down on the bed - absolutely graceless and making a fuss the whole way down. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was somehow being forced to do this and hated it with every fiber of his being.

Of course, you _do_ know better, and your smile becomes something more gentle when the skeleton manages to settle a tome in his lap.

“I think you’ll like this one. Lovecraft himself was a dick, but his work’s pretty nifty.” 

“**i don’t like shit,**” is the immediate reply, but you notice when he pops open the book and tension is already beginning to leave his form.

“Most people don’t...” It takes a moment, but your cheeky grin is back full-force, and the look Nightmare shoots you is absolutely _scathing._ You wink, living for way his eyelight rolls in an invisible socket before returning to the pages at hand.

“But anyway, that Cthulhu guy,” you continue as he huffs, “he’s got tentacles too, y’know. Now you don’t have to feel so alone.” 

A pause.

“**keep it up, and i’ll beat you with this damn book once we’re done. i swear. i’m _serious_.**” 

“Promise?” 

His groan is so near being resigned that you have a hard time _not_ laughing, but somehow you manage. Judging by the way he squints down at the pages before him though, almost as if they personally insulted him, he remains perfectly aware of your internal struggle anyhow.

“**_pinky promise_. now be quiet and let me read.**”

You can’t quite contain the guffaw at that, however, but quiet yourself when one of those aforementioned tentacles gives you… An almost playful shove. 

_Almost_ playful, because just as before, you _do_ know better - that could never be.

Despite everything, after all, he’s still _him_.

Your all-too-literal bedfellow takes a moment to soak up the silence before beginning your shared nightly ritual.

“**i am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why,**” he begins with a rumble, and your body settles under the blankets as if on instinct. It’s no struggle at all when the tone and timbre of his voice lines up so _perfectly_ for narration.

… It helps too, of course, that he’s also so uniquely suited for the genre of tales you deliver him.

“**it is altogether against my will that i tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic,**” he carries on, “**with its vast fossil-hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice-cap—and i am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain.**”

You can only look up at him with a twisted sort of wonder as the final clues to his stress - the furrowed brow, the downward curl of his odd mouth, even the last ounce of tension in his shoulders… Simply fades away, disappearing entirely as he becomes wrapped up in the written word. 

It’s not an unfamiliar expression to you now, appearing with each visit like this, but time doesn’t take away the strikingly beautiful quality of your companion - that almost _ethereal_ glow - that comes to him when he just… Slows down like this, and takes a moment to _exist._

“**doubt of the real facts, as i must reveal them, is inevitable; yet if i suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there would be nothing left.**”

His voice continues to slip in and alongside your thoughts, settling casually within your mind as though it belongs there.

It’s funny, in a way, the manner in which it seems _you_ as an _entity_ can almost feel yourself cease to exist beside this strange, strange man. 

In these moments, you know you might as well be in another world - separate from everything beyond the two of you, yet separate from him as well… Even while still being so inexplicably intertwined.

“**the hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and aerial, will count in my favour; for they are damnably vivid and graphic.**”

It’s also in these moments that you can’t help but wonder; does he come here for the books, the reading, or maybe the opportunity to bring turmoil to a willing participant? Maybe even a combination of all the above. You’re still not sure.

“**still, they will be doubted because of the great lengths to which clever fakery can be carried...**”

You hardly catch the way his voice trails off just for a moment. Much less do you notice the way he tosses a look in your direction. 

“**the ink drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious impostures; notwithstanding a strangeness of technique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over.**”

Well, in any case, at least you can be certain his visits aren’t about _you_. They never _could_ be. There’s no changing the fact that, at the end of the day, Nightmare is a self-serving entity, and that is at his _best_.

And you think… In a way, maybe in a way even stranger than he is himself, you _think_ you find yourself becoming okay with that.

… Right?

**Author's Note:**

> reader gets nightmare to read them bedtime stories. except they're spooky. spooky bedtime stories.
> 
> nightmare later complains that "at the mountains of madness" by h.p. lovecraft does not, in fact, focus on the mountains.  
"how does the man even live."  
"He doesn't?"
> 
> nightmare also, much much later, remembers that you brought up "cthulhu" and that cthulhu was barely mentioned in the book. he's very upset. the betrayal is endless. will he ever know peace. (the answer is no)


End file.
